I lose lens caps all the time.
Now it happened again.
In searching for a new one, I found this thing — a lens cap and hood in one.
I have no doubt it will fit, but what "scares" me is the list of lenses it works with. Some are crop lenses but one is a 24-70 mm full frame. Does that mean this will not shade my 50 mm lens as much as the stock lens cap?
Looking at the specs it only lists the horizontal shades as 37 mm, while the stock lens cap to my Sigma 50 mm 1.4 DG Art is about 43-44 mm. How much difference will those mm make in image quality?
I'm quite sure the quality is not on par with my expectations but I'm willing to give it a try if I don't loose too much contrast due to the loss in shading.
Since @Huecos answer has lots of good points I will answer them here.
- I always have the hood on since it acts as protection.
- I remove the lens cap when I put on a lens or when I start shooting for the day and then leave it off.
- I'm not too worried about the front element, and I stopped using UV filters when I understood what crap they are (long time ago).
- The problem is that I generally don't bring my gear bag. I can't bring it since I have two kids and there is lots of other things to bring.
- So generally I put one extra lens in the nursing bag or below the stroller. In an ideal world it would be no problems with keeping them there without lens caps, but my spouse has a (bad) habit of putting her keys next to my lenses and my three year old picked up a new hobby recently — collecting rocks.
I can't even remember when I last time had a place to put my gear that was not mixed with other essentials needed for the kids.